Land Use/Land Cover Changes and the Relationship with Land Surface Temperature Using Landsat and MODIS Imageries in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Darren How Jin Aik, Mohd Hasmadi Ismail and Farrah Melissa Muharam
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Darren How Jin Aik: Department of Forestry Science & Biodiversity, Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Mohd Hasmadi Ismail: Department of Forestry Science & Biodiversity, Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Farrah Melissa Muharam: Geospatial Information Science Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia

Land, 2020, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-23

Abstract: Mountainous regions are more sensitive to climatic condition changes and are susceptible to recent increases in temperature. Due to urbanization and land use/land cover (LULC) issues, Cameron Highlands has been impacted by rising land surface temperature (LST) variation. Thus, this study was carried out to explore the impact of the LULC change on LST in the Cameron Highlands from 2009 to 2019 using remote sensing images acquired from Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI/TIRS), and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 11A Thermal sensors. A split-window algorithm was applied to Landsat 8 images (2013–2019) to derive the LST. Air temperature data of the study area were also obtained to cross-validate data sources. Based on the validation results, the accuracy of LULC and LST outputs were more than 94.6% and 80.0%, respectively. The results show that the current trend of urban growth continues at a rate of 0.16% per year, and the area experienced an LST increase of 2 °C between 2009 and 2019. This study is crucial for land planners and environmentalists to understand the impacts of LULC change on LST and to propose appropriate policy measures to control development in Cameron Highlands.

Keywords: land use; Landsat; land surface temperature; climate change; deforestation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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